ASUS may be
in the process of spinning off the Pegatron brand, but for now it's still the same company behind this here slick white smartbook. Running the inevitable Android OS on a 10-inch display, but offering the
never-boring Tegra 2 combo of 1080p playback and up to a "full day" of WiFi-enabled battery juice, the prototype machine was being shown off to give us a hint of what's to come. We're told the Neo is definitely coming later in the year, though the particulars of the price tag and distributor badge are not yet revealed. For our money, this was a spectacularly thin and light pseudo-laptop -- it's hard to overstate just how deprived of weight this thing is. Opening it up shows an appealing layout and keyboard, which were rather spoiled by a number of creaky and unstable parts. We found deep flex in the keyboard panel and around the hinges, but our optimistic souls are willing to put those things down to it being a demo unit. If this featherweight design makes it to market without sacrificing any of the good bits while getting rid of the bad ones, we'd recommend it in a hot and sweaty second.
posted January 8th 2010 11:29PM
Poor man's MacBook Pro.
@Comment You mean Macbook Air?
im sorry, and im sure ill be downranked, but laptop + android = D-. android is smashing in the mobile phone sector, but it does nothing but disappoint on a laptop at this stage of the game..
@SaintAndrew
Maybe not. True, I can't imagine this smartbook/pseudo-laptop/whatever-it-might-be-called making many sales or even making it to production, based on how many mini-laptops in the market right now that run Android (dont quote me but I don't think are any). Using the default Android UI and simply scaling it up is doomed to failure, but if they use it more as a foundation to build on to, like the Sense UI but with even more complexity, they might have something. After all, Android is still a great platform.
@br123 I have to agree with saintandrew, lets keep android on mobile's were it belongs. I would rather see the industry move toward making full featured OS's use fewer resources and integrate more mobility features. Only then can tablets break out of the niche market.
Edit: Tablets/Netbooks
@SaintAndrew
I really think they are sticking closer to the original ideal of a low end "netbook" and less of a notebook here. And if that's what there shooing for this is perfect. What more do you need for web, word and a few other simple tasks then Android and a little bit of storage?
@SaintAndrew Mmm, I don't know why they don't just put a regular Linux distro on these, Android is OK on a phone but pointlessly limiting for a netbook type device.
@SaintAndrew
Gotta agree here. Don't understand all those smartbooks with Android. If you can't have a proper POSIX environment on there, run Emacs, install uninstall all those useful libraries and tools with decades of tradition and development, what's the point?
I can understand having a limited system on a limited device like a phone or tablet. But giving you a proper small mobile laptop, and then putting Android (or Win7) on it, is like outlawing walking, because everyone else is a paraplegic.
Just put a proper (e.g. .deb based) Linux distro on there. Less work to get the Android environment running on there than the other way around.
@SaintAndrew It all depends on the price point these come in. If it sells for $200 with Android, little should prevent you from hacking in your favorite distro instead. Although I must admit that just from using my G1 Android can do many of the things I would use a laptop for, I just need a bigger screen and though typing keyboard. The browser is very good already and getting better, email works great, and Documents To Go does a lot of what I need in a pinch. If this thing also plays HD video, I would really only need my desktop for development and heavier apps such as transcoding etc.
All right, these companies really need to stop ripping off HP and the Envy, Jesus... ;)
@ridley182
And HP and the Envy need to stop ripping off Macbooks...
Seriously, look at almost all the laptop posts on this site, I doubt it's possible to find 3 in a row that don't look like the Macbook/Macbook Pro. And the new tablets? They look like giant iPhones...
@Neotyguy40
And everyone needs to stop ripping off the Sony Vaio with those chiclet keyboards...and that includes apple.
Don't think Apple doesn't take part in stealing designs as well.
@ridley182
I guess I should finish off with the standard:
"Everyone steals designs, it's how the industry improves, so please shut up about stuff like this"
@finnith
Amen!!
The original "Slate" made out of real slate with a wood frame and a chalk interface was an obvious rip off of the iPhone!!
@ridley182
and macbooks, vaios, and envys stop claiming an 80s style keyboard design as their own invention...
"pseudo-laptop"
smartbook
how many articles until we get this down
What doesn't run Android? Damn.
I just want to buy one so I could sharpie out the 'P' and write in an 'M'.
@Macbeth
Cool. I hadn't noticed that. Cool. If it's raised it would be easy to trim down and replace with another plastic M in the same font etc from something else. Or even carve one out of some scrap plastic and paint it the same. Cool. I award you 500 extra large "+" type internets! You Macbeth win the web for today-ish!!!
@Macbeth How do you "sharpie out" a black letter?! Perhaps you meant you would white-out the P and sharpie in an M.
why do smartbooks have to look not smart at all
@(Unverified)
Uhhh..... because!
I can't imagine the stock Android UI being anywhere near usable on a laptop. Multi-tasking would be really awkward with the notification bar and whatnot.
Google should develop a standard smartbook-specific UI for Android, otherwise if OEMs wise up and start making custom UIs, Android won't have a consistent look and feel between devices.
@Aleman I thought that was the point of Android, to make a base that is totally adaptable? HTC's UIs have completely changed the look and feel of Windows Mobile and Android on some of their devices and they've been encouraged to do so. I think it should be up to the OEM to make a better Android UI.
And I hope some of them start doing so, because I'm really sick of seeing those tiny 4 icons along the bottom of every tablet and MID concept supposedly designed for Android. Dell is certainly doing interesting things with the Streak, so clearly adding platform-specific functionality is a possibility.
how about a little love for moblin? keep the android on the phones where it belongs.
@(Unverified) I totally agree, or if not moblin one of the hundred other linux based distros built specifically for netbooks or alternative processors
@(Unverified)
Moblin is made by Intel, and I don't think they want to port it to a competing architecture. Some parts may be able to be ported by other parties, though.
Uhmm where are all the chromium smart/net books at?
looks really similar to a unibody macbook or even the macbook air
@therichad
You think so? I don't really see it. The keyboard looks like a Mac's, I'll give you that, but otherwise it looks more like a Sony ultraportable to me, with the sort of sharper corners and sloped design.
@therichad
looks more like the sinclair zx81 keyboard
it looks more like a zx spectrum with its rainbow striped badge
I WANT THIS! Asus has made solid products thus far, I hope the same from this.
*However, don't you all think this would be redundant to another netbook?
I don't mind anyone rip something from another, I just like that is so simple and useful rather than glassy and battery hunger, I'm confused Chrome OS til now and I want this one too but come with Windows.
Its ugly
Runs Andrioid, still has a windows key...
@MVMNT lol - didn't notice that. Hopefully it is because this is still a prototype and they'll get rid of the key (or else change its keycap) before release...
Wow, blast from the past. Looks like the 'New Brain' computer from the '80s:
http://www.johnsadowski.com/uploaded_images/newbrain-783670.jpg
Guy's & gal's @ Canonical, could you pls. bring ports for entire ARM cpu family pls. Having cpu support for Marvell & Freescale is NOT enough! Android, Windows CE & Chrome OS are nothing but toys, we need real OS!
****"tron" = fail
Tegra 2 again. Unbelievable amount of new smartbooks/tablets/media devices are based on this chip. I have collected some of them here: http://wp.me/pKBau-16
@Uberich
I couldn't agree more. Pls, Canonical release Ubuntu for the Tegra 2.
@sola I was going to ask whether you could just install a normal linux distribution on this... so I guess not in this case. (Or if you could, it wouldn't be efficient, no GPU support or whatever.) However, given that none of these things are out yet (Tegra 2 was first shown publicly in this CES, yes?), they've got some time...
I definitely want a 'smartbook', and preferably slightly smaller than this one, running a proper Linux distribution. Well, OK, ideally I'd like one running OS X (and not the iphone variant either), but that seems rather less likely, so I'll settle for Linux...
@(Unverified)
It seems that Nvidia has started supporting Ubuntu Linux on Tegra 2.
See this: http://wp.me/pKBau-1b
I think Android wouldn't do so well on netbooks. Especially ones with keyboards. Accelerometer and other things would be all weird. Apps would run awkward. I'd think Tablets and Handheld touch PCs would run Android better.
if it was a convertibl tablet/swivel screen, all black, and had a pixel qi display ... maybe.
Geez, Pegatron. Stop teasing and bring out an ARM based smartbook already. Preferably with Ubuntu pre-loaded.
Funny that the keyboard has a WINDOWS "Start" key on it!